Tag: HHS mandate

This is a picture of yesterday’s San Jose Mercury News, front page, above the fold. The headline: CONTRACEPTIVE BENEFIT TAKES HIT Underneath that it reads: COMPANIES THAT OBJECT CAN NOW…

This is a picture of yesterday’s San Jose Mercury News, front page, above the fold. The headline:

CONTRACEPTIVE BENEFIT TAKES HIT

Underneath that it reads:

COMPANIES THAT OBJECT CAN NOW AVOID COVERAGE.

Well, yes, maybe; but mostly no.

Fact #1: The only companies that can avoid coverage are those which family run, have strongly held religious beliefs, and are closely run by the family.

Fact #2: Most companies will not even consider cutting contraceptive coverage because offering contraception reduces the costs of pre-natal, maternity, and delivery care.

In other words, most people who rely on their health insurance for their contraception (because working people can’t afford the average $9/mo for contraceptive pills, I guess) will still be covered. Contraception will still be widely available and easily accessible, often even free (paid for by the government, that is). It’s just that now the Supreme Court has ruled that a small segment of the population doesn’t have to pay for someone else’s contraception.

Even if you support the use of contraception, there is no war against you.

Bishop Jenky of Peoria has an excellent letter that will be read at all the Masses this weekend in his diocese. It’s too good to just cite one part so here…

Bishop Jenky of Peoria has an excellent letter that will be read at all the Masses this weekend in his diocese. It’s too good to just cite one part so here it is in toto:

Dear Catholic Believers,

Since the foundation of the American Republic and the adoption of the Bill of Rights, I do not think there has ever been a time more threatening to our religious liberty than the present. Neither the president of the United States nor the current majority of the Federal Senate have been willing to even consider the Catholic community’s grave objections to those HHS mandates that would require all Catholic institutions, exempting only our church buildings, to fund abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception. This assault upon our religious freedom is simply without precedent in the American political and legal system. Contrary to the guarantees embedded in the First Amendment, the HHS mandates attempt to now narrowly define and thereby drastically limit our traditional religious works. They grossly and intentionally intrude upon the deeply held moral convictions that have always guided our Catholic schools, hospitals, and other apostolic ministries.

Nearly two thousand years ago, after our Savior had been bound, beaten, scourged, mocked, and crowned with thorns, a pagan Roman Procurator displayed Jesus to a hostile crowd by sarcastically declaring: “Behold your King.” The mob roared back: “We have no king but Caesar.” Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord. They are objectively guilty of grave sin. For those who hope for salvation, no political loyalty can ever take precedence over loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his Gospel of Life. God is not mocked, and as the Bible clearly teaches, after this passing instant of life on earth, God’s great mercy in time will give way to God’s perfect judgment in eternity.

I therefore call upon every practicing Catholic in this Diocese to vote. Be faithful to Christ and to your Catholic Faith. May God guide and protect His Holy Church, and may God bless America.

James Capretta over at NRO has a good piece on the latest “accommodation” on the HHS Mandate. National Catholic Reporter has an incredibly biased report, but they offer links to…

James Capretta over at NRO has a good piece on the latest “accommodation” on the HHS Mandate. National Catholic Reporter has an incredibly biased report, but they offer links to the relevant documents at the end of the article.

But I can’t pass up the opportunity to point out the bias from a so-called Catholic outlet.

According to NCR:

Taking a conciliatory tone and asking for a wide range of public comment, the Obama administration announced this afternoon new accommodations on a controversial mandate requiring contraceptive coverage in health care plans.

There’s nothing conciliatory about this. They’re just punting until after the election so that this won’t be an election issue and President Obama can keep his majority Catholic vote while wooing single women who won’t vote unless they’re worried about something really important like their birth control.

[In the meantime, there’s apparently nothing to accommodate individual business owners who for reasons of conscience or religion might not want to be forced to buy insurance that covers contraception.]

Here’s another messaging attempt:

On Wednesday, the leadership of the U.S. bishops’ conference dialed back its vehement opposition to the Obama administration with a statement released at the end of a two-day meeting of the bishops’ administrative committee.

“Dialed back”? If the Bishops were going to “dial back” they would not have issued the very statement in question, which included language like, “Government has no place defining religion and religious ministry.” That doesn’t sound dialed back to me, nor does the rest of the document.

But here’s the kicker in the NCR article:

News of the changes came as a senior White House official told NCR in an afternoon phone interview unrelated to the new proposed rules for the contraceptive mandate that while the Obama administration and Catholic leaders may have “some points of disagreement” over a number of concerns, the president has “dramatically expanded” the federal government’s connection with Catholic organizations.

Yes, NCR has every right to be talking with the White House and vice versa. But to present the story according to the White House talking points violates every principle of ethical journalism.

Capretta’s opinion piece is closer to journalism than that of NCR, a Catholic publication or Reuters, an official news outlet.

Yesterday, the US Catholic Bishops issued another statement on the HHS mandate, clarifying that the Catholic Church is not backing down: We will continue our vigorous efforts at education and…

Yesterday, the US Catholic Bishops issued another statement on the HHS mandate, clarifying that the Catholic Church is not backing down:

We will continue our vigorous efforts at education and public advocacy on the principles of religious liberty and their application in this case (and others). We will continue to accept any invitation to dialogue with the Executive Branch to protect the religious freedom that is rightly ours. We will continue to pursue legislation to restore the same level of religious freedom we have enjoyed until just recently. And we will continue to explore our options for relief from the courts, under the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws that protect religious freedom. All of these efforts will proceed concurrently, and in a manner that is mutually reinforcing.

The statement ends with a call to prayer. In essence, we will work like it all depends on us and pray like it all depends on God.

This morning in my regular segment on Teresa Tomeo’s “Catholic Connection”, we discussed the statement and the inevitable question arose of what to do. It’s great that the Bishops are unanimous on this issue. But we’ve seen a fair amount of Catholic leaders/intellectuals and organizations take exception. And the general Catholic public does not seem to be aware of the gravity of the matter. Many think this is just about contraception. On the contrary. As someone said to me, “The HHS Mandate has as much to do with contraception as the American Revolution had to do with tea.”

But most Catholics aren’t staying on top of the Bishops’ statements and actions apart from what they get through secular and activist sources, which continue to frame the debate in terms of contraception. Remember, in places like China forced abortion and sterilization make the issues of contraception practically mute. And it’s all because individual rights of conscience and religious liberty are not recognized.

Because we as a Church have been largely silent on the issue of contraception for more than 40 years, we need a major campaign to begin educating not only on the issue of contraception; but, more importantly, on the issues of religious freedom and individual conscience.

There are at least two somewhat readily available avenues to consider.

The Bishops could instruct their priests to preach on the issues relating to the HHS Mandate, giving them examples of how to do this. Most of our parish priests are swamped with parish obligations. Even if their hearts are in the right place, they often lack the resources to address controversial matters in a constructive way. While the Bishops have all issued letters on the HHS Mandate, not all of them have required their priests to read it, preach on it, or put it in the bulletin. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that the Bishops collectively could call for a series of Sundays in which every priest celebrating a public Mass in the diocese would be required to preach on this issue. Each Sunday could have a short reflection from the Bishops to be read at the beginning of the homily and then further explained by the homilist. Every parish across the country would have the same message, rather than the confusion of silence or even contradictory themes.

Apparently every diocese has an Appeals office to raise funds for the annual diocesan appeal. It’s been my experience that those offices have good contact information for most active parishioners in the diocese. (My husband and I have been followed into two different dioceses and across the country by the Appeals office of one of our former dioceses.) These offices use letters, emails, and even robo calls from the Bishop to do their fundraising. Why not use the same structure which we already have in place to reach the faithful on this very important issue?

These are critical times. We can’t undo the past, but we can correct our direction. The focus can no longer be on our failures (which probably have a lot to do with where we’re at), but must be on the present and the future. Now, we as a Church, know all too well the perils of not teaching in a manner that is both convincing and compelling. So we are taking a stand.

George Weigel has a column commenting on yesterday’s statement in which he compares the HHS Mandate to the 1953 decree by the Polish government compelling the Catholic Church to become a subsidiary of the Polish state. They wanted the Church to stop being…the Church. He further makes the point, as does the Bishops’ statement, that the HHS Mandate is about limiting the Church’s ability to act as…a Church. He concludes:

In sum, the bishops have rebuffed calls for a tactical retreat; the analysts who have not grasped the sea-change in perspective of the bishops’ conference have been confounded; the Catholic Lite brigades have been challenged to think again about the gravity of the theological and constitutional issues involved in the mandate; and those who have supported the bishops thus far have been affirmed in their work.

There will be no compromise here, for there can be no compromise of first principles. Those who understand that will gather their energies and continue to defend both Catholic and American tradition.

As for moving forward, The New York Times offers the example of Fr. Roger Landry, a parish priest in Lowell, Massachusetts. (Fr. Landry was a classmate of mine at the Angelicum in Rome.) The article relates several anecdotes describing the effectiveness of Fr. Landry’s preaching and teaching, but I’ll leave you with my favorite:

Last spring, scenes of a movie called “Whaling City” were being shot in St. Anthony’s. During the filming, the priest noticed that the church’s rack of sexuality pamphlets was being depleted.

“I saw all the camera men and sound guys,” Father Landry said, “and in their back pockets, coming down the main aisle, one had one on pornography, the other had ‘Sex and Contraception’ hanging out of his pocket, the other one had ‘In Vitro Fertilization.’ ”

Father Landry aimed his cellphone camera at one of the men and “snapped a photo of his derriere,” he said. “Because it’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”

The response to the availability of information and education indicates that the harvest is indeed great. As a Church, we need to cast our nets out into the deep…

There’s been a bit of concern regarding statements or quotes from Catholic Charities that made it sound as if the organization was distancing itself from the USCCB and accepting the…

There’s been a bit of concern regarding statements or quotes from Catholic Charities that made it sound as if the organization was distancing itself from the USCCB and accepting the compromise on the HHS contraception mandate.

Catholic Charities has a statement posted on its website to clarify the matter:

In response to a great number of mischaracterizations in the media, Catholic Charities USA wants to make two things very clear:

1. We have not endorsed the accommodation to the HHS mandate that was announced by the Administration last Friday.

2. We unequivocally share the goal of the US Catholic bishops to uphold religious liberty and will continue to work with the USCCB towards that goal.

Over at CatholicVote.org, Patrick Thornton has a great post on how “women’s health” has very little to do with anything but efforts to make sure that women don’t have babies….

Over at CatholicVote.org, Patrick Thornton has a great post on how “women’s health” has very little to do with anything but efforts to make sure that women don’t have babies. I couldn’t agree more.

During the Beijing Women’s Conference in 1995 (UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women), Pope John Paul II sent a delegation representing the Holy See that was headed by Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon. The UN, with the help of the US, pushed an agenda that limited women’s issues/rights to the themes of abortion and contraception.

Apparently, when the Pope saw the draft document from the conference he commented that a document that focused so much on women’s reproductive issues should focus at least as much on women’s literacy.

Something’s wrong when women’s issues and women’s health are reduced to making sure that women don’t get pregnant…

President Obama has offered a so-called compromise on the HHS Mandate. Instead of forcing Catholic institutions to pay for insurance that covers contraceptives, insurance providers will be forced to cover…

President Obama has offered a so-called compromise on the HHS Mandate. Instead of forcing Catholic institutions to pay for insurance that covers contraceptives, insurance providers will be forced to cover contraception. Yep, same situation, just a different way of keeping books on it. Hmmm, when Enron was exposed, we called it accounting fraud, among other things. Bernie Madoff’s investment practices were denounced as a Ponzi scheme. But when the funny math is proposed by the White House, we call it a compromise. Read more here.